Spiritual Wholeness

Recently, I found a puzzle piece in the cushion of our chair at home.  The piece came from one of my children’s puzzles, which had been thrown out months before.  Why did we throw out the puzzle?  It wasn’t complete.  It wasn’t whole.  The purpose of a puzzle is to put it completely together in order to enjoy the whole picture.  But a puzzle that is incomplete is not fulfilling its purpose as a puzzle and so isn’t worth putting together.

Over the past number of months we have been wading through the book of James and have addressed issues from listening to and doing the Word of God, showing favoritism, taming the tongue, submission to God, and prayer.  Like a puzzle without all its pieces, so a disciple of Christ is not whole or complete without addressing each of these issues in their life.  Unlike a puzzle without all its pieces, God does not throw us away.  Instead, He works through trials and circumstances to create the pieces needed to become whole.  This week we will attempt to bring the words of God through his servant James together to help us as disciples of Christ to understand what it means to be spiritually whole and spiritually mature.

But we must all be warned, for growing into spiritual maturity is humbling, difficult, time consuming, and painful.  But in the end the disciple of Christ will be made whole.  Not by our own effort or merit, but by the work of the Spirit within our hearts and lives.

Join us this week as we discover God’s command to grow into spiritual maturity and wholeness.  May God use this time together to bring us to Him in a deep and mighty way, for His glory and greatness alone.